I’m sure many a person my age looks around one day and asks, “Where did everybody go?” Friday night rolls around and I’ve got 4 or 5 people I can call, hopefully snagging 2 of them for a night out on the town. A few years ago it seemed like I couldn’t keep up with all the par-tays and people wanting to get out and get rowdy. Now it’s a miracle to get 8 people to a restaurant or bar in the same evening. Question mark?

Well, I think the short answer for the majority of folks is they got one of them “jobs”. Truly, a whole new littany of excuses bounce from my cell phone to my ear and out the other these days.

“I gotta work.”
“Well, I have to get up in the morning.”
“I’m so fucking tired from work this week, I think we’re just gonna stay in.”
“I would do that if I had money.” (I’m sorry, what are you working for? Company scrip?)

I mean, I’m no fool. I can take a look at society and see that as people get older, they do less stuff, they have kids and financial obligations, etc. But at 24 or 25, you’ve got to recognize that your time is fleeting and you still have a lot of opportunity to be free in your decisions. However grim you may think your situation is, however tired you may be, it is the things you currently lust for - a house, a family, a promotion - that will really just rip out your free time and free will. Better live it up.

I suppose my biggest point of confusion with these folks is that I see no difference in the working lives of my friends that keep it real and those that keep it weak. Full-time jobs. Night classes. Not breaking the bank, but not scraping by financially by any means. Yet such different decisions about what to do with their free time. It’s unreal.

Your life isn’t hard, at least no harder than anyone else’s. Be happy, be active, and stop whining about whatever it is you’re whining about. You’re more free to do what you want to do today than you will be in 10 years, and in 25 years you’ll be old and weak (especially if you keep smoking and eating American).

And if your paid employment somehow is getting in the way of the person you want to be, time to seek new paid employment. You can do anything to make money. Sell bananas. I’ll buy 4. If it will keep your spirit alive, I’ll buy 6.

Kwantsu dudes. Kwantsu.